14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts has issued an apology to the people of Northern Ireland after the company has used the Soldier's Song in the game UEFA Euro 2008, instead of the national anthem of the country. Northern Ireland, being a part of Great Britain, uses God Save the Queen as its anthem and it is played before all the matches that the national football team takes part in. As soon as players noticed the mix-up regarding the tune played, a minor stir occurred in Northern Ireland, causing quite a bit of embarrassment for Electronic Arts.
Shaun White, a representative for EA Sports, declared that "at EA Sports, we pride ourselves on delivering rich and authentic videogame experiences," and that the company felt very bad for being the one responsible for an incident regarding the use of a national anthem. He also mentioned that more thorough research was in order for all the other games in the EA Sports lineup. Gregory Campbell, the Sports Minister of Northern Ireland, has reacted by saying that "any apology on this matter is most welcome. Obviously there's has been a lack of knowledge on the makers' part and hopefully it will be changed as soon as possible."
It seems that the previous games in the long running FIFA and UEFA games from Electronic Arts did not contain the anthem blunder, so it's still a mystery why the new people working on the new game decided to change the song without any background research.
Peter Moore, the man who is heading EA Sports, recently talked about the way the brand needs to reinvent itself constantly to make sure that gamers are still interested in the games it publishes. Maybe, who knows, the developers sought to make the new UEFA game more "interesting" by mixing up a few national anthems.